Raise awareness of the benefits of active time outdoors – benefits to our own bodies and those of our loved one, families and friends – and overcome the trends that keep too many Americans indoors and sedentary.

Join the National Get Outdoors Day Campaign and support the campaign at a national or local level.

Saturday

June 9

2018

Days To Go!

0

National Get Outdoors Day is a new annual event to encourage healthy, active outdoor fun.

Participating partners will offer opportunities for American families to experience traditional and non-traditional types of outdoor activities.

Prime goals of the day are reaching first-time visitors to public lands and reconnecting our youth to the great outdoors.

National Sponsor

GO Day Partners

The Coleman Company

Coleman is the world's leading manufacturer of camping gear and outdoor equipment, including tents, lanterns, stoves, coolers and sleeping bags.

Official troubadour for Get Outdoors Day. Joe Reilly is a singer, songwriter, and educator from Ann Arbor, Michigan who writes songs from his heart. The core of his message is an invitation to heal our relationships with our selves, with each other, and with the earth.

There are abundant opportunities to get healthy by volunteering on public lands.

#5: America's public lands and water agencies and the recreation community need to work as a team to compete for the hearts and minds of 21st Century Americans.

We aren't talking about choices between biking and fishing for most Americans, but between malls and home-based technologies and the outdoors.

#2: Teenagers live in a world that is more stressed than ever before. They get overloaded with pressure at school, conflicts at home, relationship problems, and career choices. Many have to deal with divorce, moves, financial struggles, jobs, and blended families. When stress builds up, teens cope however they can. They may drink, drive aggressively, get high, overeat, go shopping, spend hours on the computer or playing video games, or take out their frustration on others.

Kids need new and better choices. They need help unwinding and handling pressure in positive ways. Recreation is a powerful antidote to stress.

#7: Americans are overwhelmed with information over the Internet. Information on what to do and where to do it is available — but we need to help Americans find it!

#9: Today's American kids are less connected to the outdoors than any previous generation. 6.5 hours a day spent watching screens. Six times more likely to play a computer game than ride a bike. Four times more likely to be obese than previous generation.

And now facing shorter lives — a decline of 2-5 years in average length of life from parents' life expectation.

#1: American families, American communities and the nation need the connectivity and unity that results from family and friends enjoying time in the outdoors.

#8: America's youth tell us that we are not reaching them with invitations to be active outdoors because we are not using the communications channels they utilize most: social networking sites including YouTube and MySpace and text messaging and photo-sharing from phone to phone.

They tell us they are interested in the outdoors but need "triggers," and National Get Outdoors Day intends to be a trigger.

#10: A smaller and smaller portion of the nation is deriving physical, mental and spiritual benefits from time on their lands, and use is especially low for America's poor, our urban dwellers, and minority Americans.

#3: Americans have a growing problem that can be addressed with more physical activity — an increase in the percentage of Americans who are overweight and obese.

This trend carries with it big costs — in dollars and quality of life. Some $160 billion in direct public spending. 7 in 10 deaths now attributable to largely preventable chronic illnesses — and 3 out of every 4 dollars in our healthcare spending is similarly directed at largely preventable chronic illnesses.

#4: The future of America's public lands will be determined by the extent to which Americans care about the Great Outdoors — and if fewer people directly benefit from time outdoors, the prognosis is not good.